In the After
by pseudonymitous
Summary: Annie comes home from Hong Kong- and she brings a lot of baggage with her. This story deals with her emotions and thoughts as she attempts to figure out who she is and what she wants. Rated T for brief, strong language and thematic elements. Latest: CH. 2
1. Chapter 1

Auggie picked Annie up at the airport. That is to say he stood stoic at the Arrivals gate, frowning into middle distance with his cane planted firmly in front of him. As soon as she saw him, Annie felt... something. It was a mix of dread and euphoria, a unique emotional cocktail that made her want to throw her arms around him whilst also throwing herself off a cliff. To kiss him, and cry herself hollow.

This was emotional instability at its finest. She needed to see a therapist. She needed to practice what she preached. A thousand decisions stood between this moment and the next moment and the next. Between getting off this plane and actually being home. She felt like J. Alfred Prufrock, dangling in a precipice of indecision and observation and bizarre, unrealized sorrow.

She licked her chapped lips and attempted to straighten her heavy, drooping shoulders. Her strides weren't confident, but she was making them. Maybe this was a matter of just doing, without worrying about doing well. God only knew how she could use some grace just then.

"You came to get me," she forced a smile. It felt easier to greet Auggie verbally. Touching him felt weird and inappropriate for some reason. And he sure wasn't going to recognize her fuzzy aura. That was a thing that died with the original Annie Walker, for sure.

"You didn't think I'd leave you hanging," he grinned. She gave him her arm and he took it, but there was some distance there. Reservation. "How was the flight?"

"Long," she said weakly. "But I'm okay."

"Joan dropped some stuff off for you this morning."

"She did? Like what?"

"Some clothes, and apparently some hair dye. She misses you as a blonde."

"Her words?"

"Her words."

"Blondes do have more fun," Annie said, and it was true, at least for her.

"Are you okay sleeping at my place?" he asked, once they got in the cab.

Annie considered the question. She was shaky and jet-lagged and tired and the bed she wanted wasn't a bed, but a sandy beach somewhere with three-digit temperatures and a language she barely spoke. If she couldn't have that, she'd take her old bed in the guest house Danielle and Michael had probably already sold, along with most of her belongings. But if she could have neither of those, she supposed she could take Auggie's.

"Only if it's not an imposition."

Annie took a long, hot shower as soon as they arrived. Being in Auggie's shower reminded her of those first weeks of relationship bliss, not to mention the countless months of pining leading up to it, and it made her both happy and sad. She used his shampoo just as she had back then, except this time he wasn't there to massage it into her scalp and kiss her neck and press her close. He was sitting in the kitchen drinking coffee.

She climbed into an oversized shirt of his and lay in his bed. He stayed in the kitchen with his headphones on, catching up on work and letting her sleep. The sheets smelled fresh, like fabric softener. He'd just cleaned them. But the pillows smelled like him, and she caught herself breathing deep. From this position, he was in her line of sight, but she was entirely shut out of his. She wondered where he stood. Their talk in Hong Kong hadn't been as wonderful and rekindling and revealing as she'd hoped. It had been stilted, and sad. Tainted with Helen Hanson and a faked death and Henry Wilcox and all of the awful, unbelievable shit that was of no importance to literally any other couple on the entire planet but which plagued their relationship from the start.

She missed the version of Auggie she thought she knew. The version she thought she could trust explicitly. The one who, to her knowledge, had never been married. Helen wasn't a bad person. Annie knew that for a fact. But she'd seduced Auggie and he'd given in, and that made Annie wonder what kind of person Auggie was.

A good one. Of course, a good one. One who loved her, deep down. She tried to tell herself that she had abandoned him. That their relationship was on pause when everything had happened. Then the rage and the fear came back, bubbling up from her diaphragm and into her throat and up into her eyes, which ran over with hot, confused tears.

She wasn't Annie Walker and she wasn't Jessica Mathews and she wasn't Auggie Anderson's girlfriend, but she also wasn't _not _his girlfriend... She had no idea who she was. And so she lay down on that bed where she'd been fucked senseless countless times before, and sobbed silently into the mattress where she knew no one could see her.


	2. Chapter 2

Annie woke up several hours later, rose and went to the kitchen. She whisked four eggs into a scramble and smothered them in salsa. She ate with voracity, suddenly starving.

"Annie?"

She nearly dropped her fork. Auggie had been on the couch with his back to her. She hadn't even noticed. He sat up now, voice thick with sleep.

"Yeah?" she managed.

"Just making sure that was you," he said. "You're so quiet."

"Sorry," she said.

She knew one-word answers were entirely unhelpful, but they seemed to be all she had in the moment. She'd spent so much time alone, back there. The human contact she did have was awful, thoroughly stressful and honestly worse than hours of dank, dark solitude. Being Jessica Mathews was not unlike being in solitary confinement. After a while, the loneliness drove her a little bit batty. Made her a little bit feral. It robbed her of her smalltalk.

She put her dishes in the sink and padded into the bathroom. She held the box of hair dye for a few moments, wondering if the girl in the mirror was allowed to be Annie Walker again. She had no glue remover, but she'd heard a rumor that dish soap worked just as well. Annie coated the roots of Jessica Mathews's hair extensions and waited. She nearly fell asleep again in the interim. It wasn't easy, but the extensions eventually worked their way out.

It took an incredible amount of care and energy to change those dark locks back to some semblance of the blonde Annie had been since high school. At no point did she leave the bathroom, and at no point did Auggie force entry. She sat on the floor for hours, getting high on the smell of bleach as her scalp burned. When she rinsed, dried and emerged, she was almost a recognizable person, but no more recognizable to Auggie Anderson than the husk of a passenger who spent last night in his bed. And in that moment, incognito felt precious. She was too unsocialized and expended to be anything more.


	3. Chapter 3

As if in a game of Marco Polo, Auggie finally found Annie. She was lying on the bed, so tired she couldn't move, so fatigued she couldn't sleep. It was probably day two or three at this point. Auggie hadn't dared to leave her all by herself in the apartment, but he'd given her so much space that she felt like the only person on planet earth. In a way he was right to do it; solitude was what she craved. And yet, when he lay on the bed beside her, his body on top of the sheets and hers curled up underneath, it felt like a miracle.

Auggie sat with his back to the wall, his left elbow initially touching the spot between her shoulder blades. Once he'd located her, his hands migrated for a better look. He ran his fingers along her exposed arm, stimulating goosebumps all the way up to her shoulder. He gingerly caressed her neck and the base of her jaw, his fingers winding through her hair with an intense sense of purpose. When he'd finished there, he flipped over onto his side and mirrored her position. It was like spooning from a distance.

"Hey."

Annie reacted to his voice like the human heart to a paramedic's paddles. He'd been good at being quiet, keeping her just past arms' length. But now he was whispering right into her ear, and his breath was on her neck, and Annie couldn't remember the last time someone had been so willing to get close without meaning her harm.

"I've missed you," Annie murmured.

"I'm so sorry," Auggie whispered back. He reached for her, and she rolled over so they were face to face. "I'm so, so sorry."

She put her hand on his cheek, and a million memories flooded back. Her hand felt right, where it was. It felt like it belonged in that valley between his cheekbone and his jaw. She remembered embracing him like this in Barcelona. Again in Medellin. Before Lena, and before Henry. Before all of the craziness that tore her limb from limb until all she was was a limp hand on the cheek of a man to whom she wasn't sure what she meant anymore.

She thought back to the years she'd longed to do this. Longed to touch his face. Longed to touch other things, too. But couldn't. And she wondered if she was back in that place, but she didn't want to ask because if she asked, that meant she'd get an answer.


	4. Chapter 4

Auggie sat up and patted the mattress beside Annie.

"C'mon. You need some unfiltered sunlight."

"I don't know..." Annie protested weakly.

"When you stay in bed all day, the terrorists win," Auggie said. "Up up."

He went to the bathroom and Annie heard the shower. She had no more than five minutes to pull herself together before he'd be back, and for some reason she didn't want to let him down.

Annie rose slowly and eyed the large Nordstrom bag in the corner. She shook its contents out onto the bed and surveyed them. It was immediately clear that these were pieces from Joan's own closet, things she regularly wore before switching over to the maternity section, and Annie wondered if these were a gift or more of a loan. Annie selected a familiar blue shirt and pulled on her own jeans from a few days ago. By the time Auggie returned to choose his own outfit, she was pulling her hair into a ponytail and tying her shoes.

"Are we going anywhere specific?" she asked as they rode the elevator down.

"I figured we'd see where the mood takes us," Auggie said. "You need the air, I need the Annie time."

Annie laughed in spite of herself. "What, is that like Lombardi time?"

"In my experience, it's far less consistent."

Auggie kept his hand above her elbow as they stepped out onto the sidewalk. Annie felt herself to relax slightly as they fell into step. The air was so fresh it almost burned after spending so much time indoors. The sunshine was warm and gentle.

"You were right," Annie said after a long minute of silence.

"About what?" Auggie asked, and Annie wondered if she'd derailed an important train of thought.

"I did need the air."

"You still do," he commented. "Don't think we're turning around."

"Wouldn't dream of it," she mumbled, attempting to adjust to the sights and sounds. She loved DC. As far as home bases went, she liked having this one, especially in the spring. The cherry trees were full and fluttering, and the breeze was just cool enough. She wanted to think of this as her DC. Annie Walker's; not the version she'd been through as Jessica Matthews. She wasn't ready to accept those events as memories.

"You know, I actually thought I lost you at one point," Auggie said.

Now it was Annie whose train of thought vanished. "Oh?"

"Couple points, actually."

Annie didn't know what to say. So she waited.

"You kicked ass out there," Auggie said finally. "You made a tough call, but you pulled through."

"I killed Henry Wilcox," she said softly, eyes reflexively darting around to ensure no one was eavesdropping. She blushed at her own instincts. "I'm actually kind of a mess right now."

"I kind of gathered that after you spent three days in bed," Auggie said. "But the good news is that you're not the only mess."

"Yeah, you're kind of a mess too."

"Hey now," a grin played at the corner of Auggie's mouth.

Annie found a bench, and the two of them took a seat.

"Are you my boyfriend?" Annie asked. It flew out of her mouth before consulting her brain. It sounded less like a clarifying statement and more like the babble of the senile.

Auggie's brow furrowed, and he mulled it over for a long moment. Finally, he turned to her.

"I want to be someone you can trust," he said quietly. "I want a hell of a lot more to be someone you know has your six when it counts. There's a saying- don't make promises when you're happy or decisions when you're angry. I also don't know if it's smart to have this conversation when we're grieving. That doesn't mean I don't have opinions on the subject. I just don't want to play Jenga with something so fragile. Not now."

Annie felt a tear slip down her cheek, and she fought as she'd done a thousand times before to keep it quiet. She was sad. She was moved. She was hurt and confused and breakable.

"Annie?" Auggie's voice was soft.

"You're right," she managed. "The timing is bad."

Annie watched as Auggie's brow furrowed and his lips pursed. He turned to her and rested his arm on the back of the bench.

"Come here," he said quietly. She let him embrace her, and she cried into his shirt for a good long while.


End file.
